Family Grieves Over Soldier

The sergeant, who was killed in Iraq, was a role model and surrogate father to his siblings.

September 14, 2005|By ViCtor Manuel Ramos, Sentinel Staff Writer

Two days before leaving for Baghdad in January, Sgt. Franklin Ruddy Vilorio had several of his buddies from Georgia's Fort Stewart Army base join him and his mom for lunch.

They were joking around and acting as if war was just another stop in their lives, even as Vilorio's mother, Santa Pollock of Orlando, worried about the risks. So they made a promise to her and to themselves.

"All the boys said they would come back and sit at the same table -- together -- after [returning from] Iraq. They were going to survive and come back," Pollock, 46, said Tuesday.

Today, Pollock will bury her son with full military honors.

The Dominican immigrant, who became a U.S. citizen a couple of years after joining the Army, was killed Sept. 6 when a bomb hit his convoy in Baghdad. Vilorio, 26, was the oldest child in his family. He was a role model and, at times, a surrogate father to his two brothers and sister.

"To me, this meant that they took a piece of my heart," Pollock said in Spanish on Tuesday as her voice trembled, "because I was father and mother to my children. I raised them on my own, and I brought them up to be good people."

The U.S. Department of Defense said Vilorio was one of two soldiers killed when a makeshift bomb exploded near the M1114 Humvee, an armored vehicle that Vilorio was riding during a military mission in Baghdad. Relatives said Vilorio died of head fractures.

The other casualty was Staff Sgt. Jude R. Jonaus, a 27-year-old Miami resident who was a member of the Georgia-based 3rd Infantry Division that Vilorio had sought out as his assignment because he wanted to remain close to relatives in Florida.

The Vilorio story is one of sacrifice and struggle, like that of many other immigrant families seeking refuge in Florida. Vilorio was born in Hato Mayor, in what is mostly a farming area of the Dominican Republic.

After his father deserted the family, his mother left him and two other children with baby sitters 12 years ago so she could try her luck working in Miami. During that time, relatives said, he cared for his younger brother, Francisco, and his sister, Norelis.

Pollock obtained U.S. visas for them and brought them to Miami about 10 years ago. Vilorio was 16 and spoke not a word of English. He was the first one to learn English because he vowed he would finish high school. Vilorio graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School in 1998 while working his way to assistant manager at Burger King.

"When he set his eyes on something, he achieved it," said Francisco Vilorio, 25, the owner of an automobile junkyard in Apopka. "He was always the most mature. He was also the kind of person who gave it all for his family and friends."

He joined the Army in August 1999, partly because he saw it as a step to a long-term career path, relatives said.

Relatives said Vilorio was looking forward to ending his tour of duty next year. His wife, Rosaura, had gotten her U.S. visa and moved from the Dominican Republic to Orlando a few months ago. They were hoping to start their life together here.

Vilorio also is survived by a 10-year-old brother, Jaime Pollock; a daughter, Noemi Winkler of Germany; and two stepchildren, Carlos and Karylin Reyes.

Family and friends will gather today at10 a.m. for a funeral Mass at St. Andrews Catholic Church, 801 N. Hasting St. in Orlando. Burial will follow at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell.

Pollock said she supported her son's desire to join the Army because he told her it was his dream, but she is devastated about his life being cut short.

"What keeps me alive is the thought that he did what he wanted to do and realized some of his dreams," Pollock said. "I would just like the president, or whoever it would be, to stop this war so that other mothers won't live what I am living."